DESALTING FACTS

AMTA

DESALTING FACTS

WHAT IS DESALTING?
Water desalting, or desalination, has long
been utilized by water-short nations
worldwide to produce or augment drinking
water supplies. The process dates back to the
4th century BC when Greek sailors used an
evaporative process to desalinate seawater.
Today, desalting plants worldwide have the
capacity to produce over 6.0 billion gallons a
day enough water to provide over 15 gallons
a day for every person in the United States.
About 1,200 desalting plants are in operation
nationwide. Most United States plants are
used for brackish (moderately salty) ground
water treatment for softening and organics
removal, or to produce highly purified water
for industrial use.
In the United States, water is relatively
inexpensive compared to many other parts of
the world. However, the vagaries of weather,
skyrocketing population growth and
subsequent increases in demand for water in
arid, semi-arid and coastal areas are
contributing to a heightened interest in water
desalting as a means to augment existing
supplies. In addition, many communities are
turning to desalting technology as a costeffective method of meeting increasingly
stringent water quality regulations.
Uses of Desalting
The conversion of salt water to drinking water
is the most publicly recognized desalting use.
Desalting processes are also used in home
water treatment systems, to treat industrial
wastewater, to produce high-quality water for
industrial purposes, to improve the quality of
drinking water from marginal or brackish
sources, and for the treatment and recycling of
municipal wastewater.
The Process
Water desalting is a process used to remove
salt and other dissolved minerals from water.
Other contaminants, such as dissolved
metals, radionuclides, bacterial and organic
matter may also be removed by some

desalting methods. In addition, desalting

processes are used to improve the quality of
hard waters (high in concentrations of
magnesium and calcium), brackish waters
(moderate levels of salt), and seawater.
Desalting separates saline water into two
products: fresh water and water containing the
concentrated salts, or brine. Such separation
can be accomplished by a number of
processes. The two most widely used are
thermal processes and membrane processes.
Thermal (Distillation) Processes
Nature, through the hydrologic cycle,
provides our planet with a continuous supply
of fresh, distilled water. Water evaporates
from the ocean (salt water) and other water
bodies, accumulates in clouds as vapor, and
then condenses and falls to the Earths surface
as rain or snow (fresh water).

Distillation desalting processes work in the

same way. Over 60 percent of the worlds
desalted water is produced by heating salty
water to produce water vapor that is then
condensed to form fresh water.
Since heat energy represents a large portion of
overall desalting costs, distillation processes
often recover and reuse a portion of the heat
required to decrease overall energy
requirements. Boiling in successive vessels,
each operated at a lower temperature and
pressure can also significantly reduce the
amount of energy needed.

7/18/2001

AMTA

DESALTING FACTS

Depending on the plant design, distilled water

produced from a distillation plant has salt
concentrations of 5 to 50 parts per million
(ppm) Total Dissolved Solids (TDS). Between
25 and 50 percent of the source water is
recovered by most distillation methods.
Membrane Processes
Both the electrodialysis (ED) and reverse
osmosis (RO) processes use membranes to
separate salts from water.

DESALTING FACTS

REVERSE OSMOSIS
In reverse osmosis, salt water on one side of a
semi-permeable plastic membrane is
subjected to pressure, causing fresh water to
diffuse through the membrane and leaving
behind a concentrate solution, containing the
majority of the dissolved minerals and other
contaminants. The major energy requirement
Principle of Reverse Osmosis (RO)
Membrane

OSMOTIC
PRESSURE

No one desalting process is the best. A

variety of factors come into play in choosing
the appropriate process for a particular
situation. These factors include the quality of
the source water, the desired quantity and
quality of the water produced, pretreatment,
energy and chemical requirements, and
concentrate disposal.
ELECTRODIALYSIS
Electrodialysis is an electrochemical process
in which the salts pass through the membrane,
leaving the water behind. It is a process
ED/EDR Schematic
Positive Polarity
Na+

c
a
c
a
c
a
c

Cl-

Na+

Cl-

Na+

Cl-

Na+

Cl-

Negative Polarity

Cation
Membrane
Anion
Membrane

Saline Feed

typically used for brackish water. Because

most dissolved salts are ionic (either
positively or negatively charged) and the ions
are attracted to electrodes with an opposite
electric charge, membranes that allow
selective passage of either positively or
negatively charged ions can accomplish the
desalting. Freshwater recovery rates for this
type of unit range from 75 to 95 percent of the
source water.

Pressure

Reverse
Osmosis

Fresh
Water

Product

Raw Water

Reject

for reverse osmosis is for pressurizing the

source, or feed, water. Depending on the
characteristics of the feed water, different
types of membranes may be used. Because the
feed water must pass through very narrow
passages in the membrane, larger suspended
solids must be removed during an initial
treatment phase (pretreatment). Nanofiltration
plants typically operate at 85 to 95 percent
recovery. Brackish water RO plants typically
recover 50 to 80 percent of the source water
and seawater RO recovery rates range from 30
to 60 percent.
This material has been prepared as an educational tool by the
American Membrane Technology Association (AMTA). It is
designed for dissemination to the public to further the
understanding of the contribution that membrane water
treatment technologies can make to improving the quality of
water supplies in the US and throughout the world.

For additional information contact:

American Membrane Technology Association
PO Box 769
Bonsall, CA 92003-0769
Phone: (760) 643-1750
Fax: (760) 643-1761
E-mail: amtaorg@aol.com
Or check out our web site at:
www.membranes-amta.org
7/18/2001